User blog:Wywyrm 1/Wywyrm's Building Advice: Battleships
I know I'm new to the wiki as far as registering goes, but I've had my fair share of experience with building ships in the game. What this will explain will be my own advice on how to build a decent Battleship, the most common and most versatile ship type in the game. For the sake of comparisons, I'll use one of my own battleships, Leviathan, as a benchmark to explain my points: I'll start off by saying this: building a battleship is much like building a tank. There are three attributes that you need to balance to have as versatile a ship as possible: *Firepower: The whole reason for building a Battleship in the first place is to put as many of the biggest guns on the biggest ships as possible. *Protection: A Battleship isn't a Battleship if it can't take any hits (that's why there's the Battlecruiser classification, or as I call them, glass cannons). *Agility: Mobility as a whole is less important for a Battleship, but it definitely helps, since it both gets you within range to hit your target accurately faster, but it makes you harder to hit in the process. The ability to balance each of these three atttributes is VERY important if you want to do anything more than act as target practice in online play (unless you're just doing drills, at which point, knock yourself out). Here's what you get when you neglect one detail of each one. *Heavy Firepower and high Speed but little Armor: A Battlecruiser (Can throw punches, but can't take them) *Heavy Firepower and heavy armor but low speed: A Fortress (A sitting duck) *Heavy armor and high speed but little firepower: A Battering Ram (A one-hit wonder at best, and useless at worst against competent opponents with decent mobility/gunnery) Avoid the three previously-mentioned combinations like the plague if you intend to be competitive, now to deal with each aspect. Firepower: "Shock and Awe" This is what many think of when they imagine a Battleship: big guns on big ships that dish out serious punishment. Indeed, this is kind-of the most important part of building one: you have to build your hull around the types of guns you intend to use. Note that the most successful Battleships usually use three "batteries", or sometimes more, referring to different layers of defense covered with different guns. For all intents and purposes, we'll stick to three, with additional weapons being noted in a fourth "miscellaneous" section. Main Battery: The Big Guns This is where one has to take into consideration space more than anything else, as these are the largest guns on your ship. This analyzes each type of weapon one can use for the main battery, their advantages and disadvantages etc. etc. The Big Stick: 46 cm guns The typical go-to gun when it comes to the main battery is the triple 46 cm gun turret. They pack incredible firepower and have a supposedly long range. However, just because it SAYS the max range is 15.8 kilometers doesn't mean you're going to HIT anything at that range (any bonus that the rangefinder gives is trivial at best). That being said, once you get within 10 kilometers, these should have no problem taking down even the toughest enemies (unless they have enough armor to give a VIP-level ship a run for its money, at which point I can't help you there). Secondary Battery: Holding the Line When your enemy gets closer, sometimes it helps to have additional, smaller guns to do more damage since you probably won't hit anything out at extreme ranges. Most of the guns smaller than the 46 cm would fit into this battery. Why Bigger isn't always Better: Quadruple Guns and the Triple-40 These are typically foregone competitively in comparison to the 46 cm guns, but I've found the quadruple 36 cm and 38 cm guns quite powerful in their own right. While not as powerful as the 46 cm guns, the extra shell one can fire before having to reload can sometimes make a world of difference when trying to hit faster/smaller enemies. If not in the main battery then I STRONGLY recommend using them in the secondary battery. That being said, if you intend to put a gun in a place on your ship that can FIT a 46 cm gun, you probably SHOULD get a 46 cm gun to put there, but since the quadruple guns only take up 4x5, these are useful to put at the ends of the bow and stern with the 46 cm guns super firing over them. Alternatively, you can use the triple 40 cm gun instead of the quad 36s or 38s if you prefer brute firepower to volume of fire. Ol' Reliable: 30.5 cm Family These guns are probably the first "big guns" that a player starts off with in Battleship Craft (assuming one uses the code to get the Mikasa). Well, as it turns out these are still useful even at higher levels; indeed, they are often the largest guns you'll ever need on an Aircraft Carrier, but on a Battleship they're simply there for an additional bit of ranged firepower. The 30.5 cm 30.5 cm+ guns take up the same amount of space as the quadruple guns mentioned earlier, so I personally do not recommend using them; if you can, get the quadruple guns or triple-40. The 30.5 cm (old) on the other hand, is a very compact gun that only takes up 2x2, and is thus easy to deply en masse. They can definitely deter a smaller, more agile adversary from trying to get too close, mitigating the risk posed by torpedo-armed fast boats. Tertiary Battery: We've STILL Got Reserves! Sometimes your big guns in the primary and secondary battery isn't enough to deter those pesky fast boats that slip through your defenses to try and make a torpedo run. Fortunately, there's a way around this, as there are smaller guns that the 30.5 cm series that still work fairly well at this range due to their higher rates of fire. Peashooters: the 47 mm and 76 mm Rapid-Fire Cannons Why anybody would use these is beyond me, as besides their rate of fire, they're pretty much useless except against REALLY weak enemies at ridiculously-close range; seriously, the Type 96 25 mm AA gun is more powerful than these ones. Don't bother with them. Not very powerful, but compact: 15 cm and 20 cm Don't even bother witht he 12.7 cm gun; these weapons are the most powerful guns that take up only 1x1 on your ship, making them invaluable for close-in defense. A couple of them should be fine if you intend to use them. The 20 cm gun, while fast-firing, takes up the same space as the 30.5 cm (old) gun. If possible, use those instead. Death of a Thousand Cuts: the Mark 45 5-inch Gun As opposed to the other guns mentioned before, THIS weapon's effective range is about as far as stated, since they use a mostly-flat trajectory that allows them to accurately hit targets out to 15.6 kilometers, or even further if you know how (there's a method involving planes that I've used with my carrier, but that's another story). These weapons are ESPECIALLY effective against fast, lightly-armored enemies at a distance, and while each shot is fairly weak, their rate of fire makes up for this. Plus, they make an excellent first line of defense against aircraft. Sting in the Tail: Torpedos These can be an excellent last-resort weapon to use at point-blank range, as they are slow and short-ranged, but immensely powerful. For the purpose of close-in defense, one's best bet is either the Type A, which is shorter-ranged than the others but only takes up 1x1, and the Triple Torpedo Tube, which takes up 3x3 but fires a trio of longer-ranged torpedos. If one REALLY feels like going full-potato with these one can build the underwater torpedo tubes, usually reserved for submarines, into their hulls for a little extra head-on firepower. Being Prepared: Situational Weapons These are pretty straight-forward. Add as needed. Weapons in this category include the following: 25 mm Type 96 AA gun Phalanx CIWS Rocket Launcher Missile Launcher Hedgehog Depth Charge Protection: "Your BFG isn't any good if you're dead" As opposed to firepower, this section is fairly straight-forward and is simply some "dos" and "don'ts" one should follow during construction. "If you punch a concrete wall, you're gonna have a bad time...": Armor When it comes to your hull, on a Battleship this is the most important part. If made right, one can build their entire hull out of armor pieces, without having to use vulnerable hull pieces. 600 mm is the ideal for armor protection, but don't be afraid of using lesser thicknesses to reduce weight if necessary Chinks in the Armor: Armor Layout Armor only does its job if you put it where the enemy's gonna shoot. Do some drills with your ship once its built and observe where the enemy shells hit you and where they do the most damage. Getting killed by plunging fire at a distance? Improve your armor on the top deck. Torpedos nailed you? Put an armor belt along the side. Don't be cheap: Using Lightweight Armor While costly, lightweight armor is the only way to make an almost completely-armored hull; using the free, heavier armor will result in a ship that's too dense, which will sink easily. Grinding drills is pretty much your only option here. 600 mm Lightweight is going to be your main building material, with large 400 mm lightweight blocks and 400 mm half, 1/3 and 5/6 armor used as needed. Mobility: "How the ^%$# is that Yamato doing 100 knots!?!?!?" A nice thing to have as a Battleship skipper is mobility; it both allows you to get into better firing positions than your lumbering contemporaries as well as get the better of smaller enemies. Getting up a head of steam: Boilers The general rule with a large Battleship is to use the most powerful engines you can. This typically means either the Gas Turbine or Angled Boiler. The Gas Turbine is better if embedded into the hull of the ship, while the Angled Boiler does better on the deck. Always have backup: Protection and Redundancy As with ANY ship, a ship with a dead engine is a sitting duck; to prevent such a thing from happening, one should be mindful o their armor layout. Hollow out some space in the hull and put armor on top of your engines. If that isn't possible, have backup engines inside the hull itself. The aircraft carrier boilers lend themselves well to this due to their short height. The Secret to Success: Speed-Tweaking See the page on Speed Tweaking for info. An Assessment: Battleship Leviathan To see how my Battleship fairs based on these criteria, here's her stats: Firepower: In terms of firepower, the Leviathan's pretty solid. Its armament includes the following (note: I intend to replace some of the guns in the tertiary battery with Mark 45s): Main Battery: 4 x 46 cm guns Secondary Battery: 2 x 38 cm quadruple guns 12 x 30.5 cm (old) guns Tertiary Battery: 12 x 15 cm guns 26 x 25 mm Type 96 AA Guns Overall, the weaponry of this ship is decent, the only real flaw being that all of the AA guns are arranged in two banks along the superstructure, in a relatively small area, which makes them vulnerable to a sustained air attack. Protection: Leviathan is actually pretty solid in this department, as it used the "600 mm Skelton (46 cm gun can be mounted)" as the base for it, as do Yamato, Iowa, Nelson and Vanguard. While seemingly impressive on paper (indeed it has a LOT of armor and is tougher than Yamato), its short-coming is armor layout. It has a couple of major weaknesses, one being the center of the top deck, where the two Gas Turbines are. During drills, the AI seems to aim at this area almost exclusively (see the TV Tropes entry for "The Computer is a Cheating Bastard"), whereas most human players I've gone up against rarely if ever hit it unless I try to go broadside to them. Also, unlike Yamato, protection against torpedos isn't exactly very good. These weaknesses were initially because of my obsession at the time with building a ship that's both bigger and better than Yamato. Mobility: THIS is where it blows Yamato and Iowa out of the water. When I built it, I had accidentally speed-tweaked it slightly, resulting in a top speed twice that of Yamato; this alone has given me victory in multiplayer at times. It also turns pretty well too. Leviathan also possesses excellent redundancy: the Gas Turbines on top are two of a total of six engines, the other four being large aircraft carrier boilers deep in the hull, safe from most attacks. Multiplayer Performance: As a level 6 vessel, Leviathan sees some of the toughest ships players can offer outside of VIP. That being said despite some glaring weaknesses in protection, Leviathan has been surprisingly successful. Against other Battleships at the same level, Leviathan has almost never lost (a couple of times I lost to a couple of modified Yamatos back when I was still adjusting some of the ship's armor arrangement). The most common opponents it has face are either stock or slightly-modified versions of the Yamato, Iowa, Nelson and Vanguard, with the occassional custom ship thrown into the mix. A combination of high speed and firepower has allowed Leviathan to abolutely DESTROY these ships while they were stock (once beating a slightly-modified Iowa without taking a single hit, granted I don't think the opponent was prepared to see a ship that size come at him at 120 knots so he missed all of his shots). Against Fast Boats, Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers and Battlecruisers, battles have been LAUGHABLY one-sided in my favor, with my ship either pulverizing theirs before they could fire or taking their blows while dishing out stronger ones in response. Aircraft Carriers have proven quite a nuisance, as the AA battery, while formidable, is concentrated in one place, and despite Leviathan's high speed, all it takes it one lucky hit from a Dive Bomber to both knock them out and slow my ship down. That being said, the typical tactic of trying to run away from me hasn't been too helpful for the enemy due to Leviathan's speed (it's 30 knots faster than my OWN Carrier). That being said, against enough planes, Leviathan's defenses can be completely overwhelemed and the ship sunk by sheer weight of numbers. The BANE of my existence, however, is submarines, as my ships has no means to fight back against them. That being said, I've had yet to encounter a submarine with this ship. Category:Blog posts